MSI GS60 vs MSI GS70 -- pros vs cons?

[ProgrammingTheFuture]

Hey, so I have pinpointed these two laptops to purchase and I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts which might help contribute making a more informed, better decision.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152709

&

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152708


I tried watching some videos but I didn't find anything very definitive or helpful to me. Does anyone recommend either/or based on the build, etc. ? The specs are basically the same. This will be used for 6 - 10 or more hours a day programming, in college, business, etc.

Thank you in advanced !

 

[Warukyure]

Are you going to be moving it a lot? Do you play games? Do any graphical work?
Personally, I actually like the GS 70 Ghost more since better GPU overall

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152680CVF

It does have a bit less Memory, but memory is usually one of the easiest and cheapest thing to upgrade down the road, but the one advantage this one has is that it has a better GPU. I ran a gaming benchmark on the GTX 970 vs the GTX 965 and the GTX 970 does perform MUCH better. Of Course if you dont game then disregard this.

I would recommend the 15" model over the 17" being that it is lighter, easier to carry around. Not sure about your college but the one I went to there were usually areas where they had larger monitors that you could plug your laptop into. Meaning you can go with the lighter/easier to carry around laptop and still get the bigger screen when you're doing programming.

 

[ProgrammingTheFuture]

Are you going to be moving it a lot? Do you play games? Do any graphical work?
Personally, I actually like the GS 70 Ghost more since better GPU overall

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152680CVF

It does have a bit less Memory, but memory is usually one of the easiest and cheapest thing to upgrade down the road, but the one advantage this one has is that it has a better GPU. I ran a gaming benchmark on the GTX 970 vs the GTX 965 and the GTX 970 does perform MUCH better. Of Course if you dont game then disregard this.

I would recommend the 15" model over the 17" being that it is lighter, easier to carry around. Not sure about your college but the one I went to there were usually areas where they had larger monitors that you could plug your laptop into. Meaning you can go with the lighter/easier to carry around laptop and still get the bigger screen when you're doing programming.

Thank you Warukyure! You make some excellent points!
I will be moving quite a bit for school, work, etc. and juggling it all. You are right about when I am at College (which is 20 out of 80 hours of work on a computer per week) I could likely hook up my laptop to an external monitor. Would I need to purchase a cable to do that ?

I won't be playing any games at all... Thats the problem, is that I think the high quality GPU, which I really don't need, is driving up the price a lot. In terms of graphic work, perhaps more in the future but it is not the plan and by that time I will hope to have a place to settle and buy a desktop.

Essentially I am looking for a laptop to get me through the next 5 - 10 years of college, software development, business and work. Hopefully by then I will have the finances to live in security and upgrade to a desktop (and still use my great laptop while moving -- for business, etc.)

Anyways, so a bigger screen would be highly appreciated, but not necessary. GPU / graphics is the one thing I would sacrifice 100% for other specs such as 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD + 128 SSD,etc.

I would love to hear if you have any further thoughts. Or suggest any other laptops at all.

I also came across

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152689
&
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834233059

do you have any thoughts on these or suggestions?

I have spent hours trying to determine the best laptop as I will be using it for 80 hours a week and still can't determine what will be the best. I really appreciate your thoughts and suggestions and help in this regard !

I would love to hear if you have any further thoughts.

 

[Warukyure]

Most of the College tech departments will have extra display cable that they can lend you. So don't worry about that. Most of the time they'll be stuck to the monitor anyways.

If graphics isn't at all important to you, then I would actually like to recommend these.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t550/

Just select the upgrade to get 1080p screen.

This works to be around $1000 vs the expensive MSI models you're looking at. For the MSI laptops you're essentially buying a gaming laptop.

And lastly, this is just me, but I really promote getting something "Good" instead of something thats "The Best".

Reason being, for about HALF the price, you get a really "good" laptop now, and then in 3-4 years later, get something then that would even be better for the same price, or get something near equivalent for much less. And if it even came down to it, you could always turn it around and sell or give away your old laptop then.

Also its better to upgrade RAM/SSD yourself vs buying a laptop thats fully loaded because parts are cheap or always on sale.

But hey, thats just my opinion.

EDIT1: Thinkpads are SUPER durable and really built to last.

EDIT2: Personally, I'm on a 2-3 year life cycle for laptops at this point, I'll buy one use it for work/school for 2 years then I'll get another one, and sell the old one. (Recently sold off a 2012 MacBook Air that I was using and sill got $600 for it, didn't even like OS X as I had windows installed in bootcamp and used that all the time.)